Conrad understood transactions.

He did not understand endings.

He kept negotiating because negotiation implied I was still in the room, still reachable, still a party to something.

He could not accept that I had left the table entirely — that the woman he was calling had already become someone for whom he was not a crisis to be managed or an enemy to be defeated, but simply a closed matter.

I did not hate him.

Hatred is a form of attention, and I had none left to give him.